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ARE KINDERGARTENERS READY TO LEARN?

September 27, 2000

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special Education News presents this monthly feature to give readers a glimpse of interesting developments in the special education field. Special Education News welcomes submissions for future monthly data reports.

Legislators, state education agencies and non-government organizations need to work more closely to prepare young children for school if they are to see academic success by middle school and high school, according to the Child Mental Health Foundations and Agencies Network, a group of private foundations and federal agencies. The group released the policy paper, A Good Beginning: Sending America 's Children to School With the Social and Emotional Competence They Need to Succeed, earlier this month to identify ways education, child care and health care providers can create a system to prepare young children for learning.

"Social and emotional school readiness is critical for young children's early school success -- and may even set the stage for success later in life," the group argues. The National Institute for Mental Health called the findings "a major advance in our understanding of what it takes to prepare a young child for school."

The group cites research by M.J. Cox, S.E. Rimm-Kaufman and R.C. Pianta, to be published in Early Childhood Research Quarterly, showing that a substantial number of kindergarten teachers are seeing children enter school unprepared in key learning areas. Portion of teachers who say at least half their students enter kindergarten with the following problems:

• Difficulty following directions: 46 %
• Lack of academic skills: 36 %
• Disorganized home environment: 35 %
• Difficulty working independently: 34 %
• Lack of any formal preschool experience: 31 %
• Difficulty working as part of a group: 30 %
• Problems with social skills: 20 %
• Immaturity: 20 %
• Difficulty communicating/language problems: 14 %

"Social and emotional competence" stems from the relationships infants and toddlers experience early on, so it is particularly important that children develop "a secure attachment with their mother, father or other primary caregiver," the Foundations and Agencies Network says. In their second year, the children should be learning self-awareness, independence and self-control. "Children who do not achieve these age-appropriate social and emotional milestones face a far greater risk for early school failure," the group said.

The Foundations and Agencies Network identified 15 risk factors for early school problems:

• Low birth weight and neurodevelopmental delays
• Other medical problems
• Difficult temperament and personality, such as hyperactivity or aggressive behavior
• Family composition, including divorce and remarriage
• Low level of maternal education
• Parental substance abuse
• Immigrant status
• Minority status
• Low socioeconomic status
• Maltreatment
• Problematic maternal relationship
• Psychophysiological markers -- indicators of changes in the brain or other organs that limit child's cognitive and regulatory capacities
• Insecure attachment in early years
• Child care by someone other than the mother
• Characteristics of kindergarten and first grade classes, including class size and amount of parent-teacher interaction

Based on the cross-disciplinary nature of the risk factors, the group is pushing for more collaboration among agencies and less micromanaging at the top levels of government. "One barrier is the fact that the responsibility for early childhood policy at the federal level is divided among many congressional committees," the Foundations and Agencies Network said. "All committees and committee members would need to agree on the importance of this issue." To accomplish this, early childhood programs need "champions " within government, the philanthropic community and the business community, the group said.8